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THE GOLDENROD LODE 



JAMES GRAFTON ROGERS 





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THE GOLDENROD LODE 



T'/^^Goldenrod Lode 

zA Frontier 'Drama in Uerse 

Written for The Cactus Club of Denver, by 

James Grafton Rogers and performed 

by The Club in its outdoor theatre 

in the Rocky Mountains, 

September 4, 1920 



Printed for The Cactus Club, Denver : 1920 






-f^ 






Copyright, 1921 

by 
The Cactus Club 



\m 28 B 

rJClA612303 



FOREWORD 

DURING the early days of the gold excite- 
ment in Colorado, when prospectors 
tramped the hills and valleys with frenzied, 
ceaseless energy, scratching at likely cliffs and 
outcrops, or scooping up the sands of stream- 
beds, there was a legend that somewhere lay a 
great vein of pure gold which, could one but 
find it, would make the finder fabulously rich — 



"A mother-lode, ichose merest sweepings poured 
Across the caiion-brivi like stars that fell 
To feed the placers." 



This legend was so widely current as to be 
the driving force behind months and years of 
painful, tireless searching. The yellow flakes 
in the pan were but auguries of hope soon to 
be realized. Yet no one found the vein, and so 
the legend grew that beavers had hidden the 
magic vein beneath the waters of their pool, 
and thus concealed it from the eye of man. 
This romantic legend is the framework Oif 
"The Goldenrod Lode," written for the Cactus 
Club by James Grafton Rogers, and performed 



by the Club at its Mountain Theatre on the 
evening of September 4th, 1920. 

The beauty of this open air theatre lent itself 
most naturally to romance. Two small streams 
flowed from densely wooded hills and mur- 
muring across the stage, sank into the silence 
of a beaver pool. A log cabin with its oiled 
paper window, a rough sawbuck by the door, 
sooty pots and kettles and a tripod by the smoke 
stained rocks, gave the hint of human oc- 
cupancy. 

The stage was dark when the play com- 
menced save for the glow of the fireflies which 
flitted here and there among the pines and 
hovered where the streams had bathed the 
banks with moisture. Soft woodland music 
filled the air, and gave background to the chant- 
ing voices of the trees. When fireflies, music 
and voices ceased, the audience became aware 
of the dim outlines of the stage in the half 
light, which grew in intensity as the play 
progressed until when the camp fire was 
kindled, the surrounding spruce trees were 
tinged with a warm and ruddy glow. During 
the long dialogue between Goldenrod and the 
Boy, the fire was allowed to sink and leave the 
audience totally unprepared for the shock of 
the forest fire whose terrifying glare crim- 



soned the eddying clouds of smoke and sil- 
houetted the trees against the background of 
flames. Then the stage was deluged with rain, 
giving the impression of a widespread and 
heavy downpour. The forest fire sputtered out. 
All was darkness and silence again, except for 
the fireflies, music and the chanting forest 
voices. 

To the historian, in retrospect, it is difficult 
to say that the play was the climax of the eve- 
ning. It was an integral part of the entertain- 
ment and fitted so perfectly into the scheme of 
things that the memory of that autumn eve- 
ning in the hills is like the colors of sunset — 
all blended in one harmonious whole. In the 
early dusk the members and their many guests 
assembled at the camping ground in the open 
space above the theatre where on grills placed 
over glowing charcoal fires a delicious supper 
was prepared. 

It was almost dark when supper was over. 
Stars glimmered overhead or beckoned from 
behind the trees that topped the surrounding 
mountain sides. It was time for the play. 

When the play was over, we straggled up the 
path again to the camp site. A large camp fire 
was lighted, about which we gathered. Songs 
were started, and stories told. Time was for- 



gotten. It was well past midnight when the 
last of our guests had departed and the few 
hardy souls who remained had left the glow- 
ing embers for the warmth of their blanket 
rolls. 

The fire light died, but not so the memory 
of that evening. With each of us there re- 
mained a bit of precious romance from "The 
Goldenrod Lode." 

E. G. B. 
December, 1920. 



CAST 

(With the players and staff of September 4, 1920) 

The characters in the order they appear: 

Duke, an English ne'er-do-well E. I. Thompson 

Otero, a Mexican teamster John S. Barrows 

Pinto, an express rider Hugh McLean 

The Sheriff, a frontier saloonkeeper 

Forrest Rutherford 

Sonny, the Sheriff's son Clinton Jansen 

Goldenrod, a prospector Robert G. Bosworth 

Voices in the Spruce. . .C. S. Stimson, George P. Steele 



The Scene is in a forest in the Rocky 

Mountains, about 1870. 
Incidental Music by John H. Gower 



Director of Stage Mechanics and Camp 

Fred Wilson Hart 

Chief of Stage Effects John S. Collbran 

Director for Music Irvin J, McCrary 

( Dudley Hart, Edmund B. Rogers, 
Theatre Staff J Burnham Hoyt, Reginald Poland, 
I Walter C. Mead. 

( Fred W. Hart, John S. Collbran, 
The Campfire ] Robert G. Bosworth, Walker Van 
Committee 1 Riper, C. H. Hanington, James 

I Grafton Rogers. 

_ .,, ( Walker Van Riper, Harold 

Finance Committee J ^^ ^ ^ t.t T^r • i,*. 

1 Kountze, James N. Wright. 

Site by permission of G. L. Baird 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 

In One Act 

A glade in a spruce j or est on the upper 
slopes of an ahnipt canon in the RocTiy Moun- 
tains. The audience faces a steep hillside^ the 
ascending terraces of xohich are smothered in 
evergreen groioth hut are hetrayed^ as time 
passes^ hy the lights and voices which develop 
in the hachgroimd. Close hehind the audience^ 
imagine a sudden canon cliff. The stage 
is a little opening formed hy the junction of 
two streams — the larger flowing from right to 
left between the players and the observers, the 
smaller trickling from the spruce-cloaked hack- 
ground over little waterfalls directly to the 
center. There., between the audience and the 
stage., a heaver colony has augmented a natural 
pool by Tneans of a mud-and-stick dam. A 
beaver-house emerges from the still boaters; 
the chips and chewed stumps of aspens by the 
stream to the left. To the right, a tiny log 
cabin with sod roof built into the hank. The 
cabin has a single window facing the audience, 
and at the left end a low doorway, into which 
the audience cannot see but from which a candle 



12 THE GOLDENKOD LODE 

light can glow to illuminate the gloom of the 
stage. A smoky kettle 07i a tripod^ a woodpile^ 
and other signs of a crude hut permanent habi- 
tation. No lights now — dusk and silence. Then 
TYiany fireflies^ their glow appearing as brief 
little lights swinging low in short arcs of their 
circling flight over the moist ground. Voices 
from the flanking spr^ice trees., chanting to 
half-heard music like the sighing of needle- 
clad boughs. 

An Elder Spruce: 

Trim spruce and young, hark and give tongue! 
Quicken my years with the fresh thoughts you 
know! 
Envy, do you — as I did in the ages by — 
Motion and light in the fireflies below? 
Tell me, are saplings content as they grow? 

A Younger Spruce: 

Chieftain and sire, who would aspire. 

Dusky and stolid, to drink and to parch 
Here till the years are spent, one in a regiment — 

Mustered forever, but never to march? 
Who stands content with a rootlet that bars 
Fluttering somewhere with fireflies and stars? 

Elder Spruce: 

Saplings, have peace! Decades increase 

Wisdom upon us, with lichens and tears. 
Fireflies that spark and fly over the ferns, to die, 



THE GOLDENKOD LODE 13 

Long for the might of our roots and our years. 
Living is longing, and fireflies are part 
Of a twilight where hands should not reach with 
the heart! 

The music dies with the voice. 

(A lantern glimmers here and there in the bacTc- 
ground; the fireflies diminish in number, and 
then are gone. A shadowy figure slips doion the 
hank to the left, onto the stage, stealthily ex- 
plores the stage and cabin, finds everything 
deserted, and, toith his back to the audience, 
whistles a bird-call into the background. It is 
repeated in answer, and three other figures — 
two carrying lanterns, one a flaming piece of 
pitch pine — slip from the background and the 
left bank into the center of the stage, with sub- 
dued words to some hidden horses and the 
jingle of spurs. The lights reveal them as a 
group of frontiersmen. The first to enter is 
the Duke — a young man in the shabby rem- 
nants of English sporting styles, a checked cap, 
and a hunting-coat. The Sheriff is a bulky 
man of fifty, with only a vest over his soiled 
shirt-sleeves, boots, a diamond pin without a 
necktie, and a fiavor of the bar-room. Pinto is 
a boyish express rider, toith a wide sombrero, 
white "chaps," a brilliant bandana, and an 
arsenal — all in proper Wild West style, and 
immaculate. The fourth is a Mexican teamster, 
Otero, in beaded and fringed leather.) 



14 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

Duke: 

This is the place; His cabin's yonder. 
Blame your own stupidity! Lord, every lame 
Old partridge on the highlands plays us so 
To hide a nest! 

Pinto: 

Sure! But an hour ago 

He climbed Sheep Mountain. Why in blazes pack 

Up timberline to reach a little shack 

Here by the canon? 

Sheriff: 

'Cause it works, you fool! 

Two winters now he's shook me there to cool 

Myself in fallen timber. 

Duke: 

And again 

Invent some penny thriller to explain 

Your absence to the town, and then go deal 

Your faro crookeder than last, and feel 

Your stacking even! Sheriff, dear old chap, 

Your're quite pathetic! 

Shebiff: 

Shut your trap 

For once, Duke! Where's the boy? I told him: 

"Hide 

Along the ledge awhile, and we will ride 

Ahead and find the lode that old galoot 

Is workin'!" But I sez: "God blame you! Scoot 

And tell us when he comes!" He can't be more 

'N half an hour behind by now. 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 15 

Pinto : 

He tramps for sure — 

As fast as a cayuse can lope. 

Duke: 

No mine 

In sight! 

Sheriff: 

The cabin? 

Duke : 

Searched it. Not a sign 

Of mineral! 

Sheriff: 

Peculiar! 

Duke: „ . , 

To my mind 

Peculiar hell! Who'd calculate to find 

A Bank of England, with a safety-vault 

To hold his nuggets? He's the kind that'd salt 

Their yellows in a gopher-hole. 

Pinto : 

But, Duke, 

A-reck'nin' by the specimens he's brought 

To town these last ten autumns, there had ought 

To be a hole as big as Hades where he dug. 

Sheriff: 

Sure, Pinto! But his cache is buried snug. 
Duke: 

Oh, he could hide the diggin's sure enough! 



16 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

Shekiff: 
Now, hearken, boys! I calculate that bluff 
Takes more in pots than cards. When that galoot 
Appears, you all just take to brush and let 
Me shuflSe up the deck. 

Sonny: (A voice in the dark, left background.) 

Sonny: 

Dad! 

Pinto : 

I'll bet 

He's comin'! 

Sheriff (to the voice) : 

Hush, you varmint, or I'll scalp 
You! Well? 

Sonny: 

But, Dad, I couldn't hardly help 

To holler! He is comin'! 

Duke: „^, 

Where? 

He's just 
Across the ledge. 

Sheeiff: ^, , ,, . 

Clear out, then! 

(They extinguish their lights.) 

Duke: 

If you cussed 

A grown man as you do that boy, he'd line 

You full of buckshot. 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 17 

Shekiff : 

What I do to mine 

'S my own. Hide out, the lot of you! 

(They disappear in the dusk in various directions.) 

(Goldenrod, with faded flowers in his hat, a staff 
in his hand, a pack, and an appearance of being 
at the end of a long tramp, comes down the 
hillside to the left. He is a prospector of about 
fifty, his hair a little grizzled, his person not 
unkempt, but somehow individual. His speech 
is somewhat book-learned. He pauses to ap- 
praise the glade, comes down to the fire-embers 
in the center, and then speaks in a burst of 
relief.) 

GOLDENKOD : 

Home again, home, where every shadow spreads 
A warmed familiar blanket, and the heads 
Of ancient spruces nod, with just the look 
That granddads, dozing in a chimney nook. 
Give some belated son! So, home again, 
Prom one more venture to the dens of men, 
While all my aspens flutter in delight. 
And titter, sister-like. And these sweet hills 
Once more secrete me in their gorgeous frills 
And petticoats, as those gigantic maidens did 
Old Gulliver. Forgotten I am hid. 
They will unfold their garments one by one. 
And change to fur when autumn yellow's done, 
And, from white fur, try shyly on the tint 



18 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

Of summer. For, until their brown frocks hint 
The wardrobe's all displayed, no storm or need 
Can break my shelter here. 

(He unloads his paclc hy the water edge, takes a 
handful of nuggets from his telt, and, kneeling, 
casts the pieces one hy one into the heaver 
pond.) 

See, beaver men! 
My comrades, water-treasurers, again 
I give you back this yellow, stony stuff 
I borrowed. For one nugget was enough 
To set the town tongues buzzing, and to buy 
The wants I had: a pair of shoes — for I 
Can never make them, struggling as I do — 
Salt, and some silly things, and then these two 
Grave, worn old books the schoolmaster had got 
From Omaha by ox-train. And the lot — 
Hark, beaver-men! — for that pack-load of skill 
And toil, and then, besides, two books that fill 
Your heart with wise and sweet old thoughts — for all. 
One rusty fragment from your waterfall! 

(He rises.) 

No, it bought more. For darker every year 
Their glances grow; and in the streets I hear 
Threats. And I dodge, like some poor cotton-tail — 
Scurfy for miles, or lurk to hide the trail 
From greedy followers. 

(At the cahin door.) 

But for another year 
Our trust is kept — my path is straight and clear! 



THE GOLDENKOD LODE 19 

(He hangs Ms pack, hy the catin door and, with 
a -parting survey of the grove, enters. The can- 
dle-light brightens the window of oiled paper, 
and a beam from the door picks out the little 
waterfalls above the cabin. The figures of the 
Sheriff and his companions slip into the stage 
from various directions. With them comes 
Sonny, a boy of about sixteen, lame and with 
one crude crutch. He is the Sheriff's son whose 
voice was heard before.) 

Shekiff: 
What did he say? Who heard him? 

Pinto : 

All I got 

Was somethin' 'bout his grandpa, and a lot 

Of talk about some skirts — like Duke here spills 

When he is soberin' up. 

Sheriff: 

And then he fills 

His tin cup at the creek, and talks some more. 

But what he said I couldn't tell for sure, 

Pinto : 

He says about his sister. Seems to be 

Some women folks around. Now, as for me 

Dxtke: 

Shades of Bill Shakespeare! Pinto, rocks and trees 
Are his relations. Those were similes. 



20 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

Sheriff: 
What's similes? 

^^^^" He called the trees, you know. 

His sisters — like an actor in a show. 

Otero : 
No le comprendo! 

Sheriff: j^^^^ -^ ^^^^^ enough! 

He's talking to himself. It's loco stuff! 
Otero: 

He's loco! Ah! 

bHERiFF. Sure, like they always get 

Batchin' alone in mountains. But I'll bet 
He'll hark to reason quick enough. You three 
Round up the doorway, gentle-like, and me — 
I'll make a rumpus like a porcupine 
A-gnawin' his cabin; and he'll know the sign, 
And come a-scoutln'; but he'll never stop 
To bring his weapon. Then you up and drop 
And rope him, and I'll guess he'll testify 
Regardin' this bonanza, or I'll try 
A few of these here similes and such. 

Duke: 

Rough on our Shakespeare! But he smells too much 
Of nuggets for a poet. I am in. 
My gentle Sheriff! 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 21 

•^^^™' Sure, but what we win 

Is split four ways, it's understood. 

sheriff: j^. jg. 

And what old Goldenrod can keep is his! 

(The Sheriff slips to the hack of the cabin. The 
Boy hides at the left. The others hide in the 
shadows around the door. The Sheriff grinds 
softly against the xvall — liTce a porcupine gnaw- 
ing some greasy hoard. The light in the cabin 
stirs, and Goldenrod, bareheaded, with tallow 
dip and a hook in his hand, steps out of the 
door.) 

GrOLDENKOD: 

Old prickle-back, you're at the bench once more 

A-gnawin', I suppose, at where I pour 

The tallow. Well, vamoose! Go mark your signs 

Of greedy, slow destruction on the pines — 

The littlest pines! The trees old nature mends. 

I mend the candle-molds. Now he pretends 

He's contrite. There, vamoose! 

(There is a struggle in the dark, the light falling 
and sputtering out. It is quite dark. Golden- 
rod is held by the Duke, Pinto and Otero, and 
brought to the left away from the cabin. The 
boy takes no part.) 

Sheriff: 

Otero, stir the campfire! Our soiree 

With this here social leader needs some day. 



22 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

(Otero comes down to fire embers, and stirs them 
to flame.) 

Duke (to Ooldenrod) : 

Your pardon, partner, but a simple mind 
Adopts this manly address, lest it find 
You armed. Your shootin'-iron? 
(Goldenrod shakes his head silently.) 

Pinto * 

He's got no gun. 

Sheeiff: 

Close up! I'll do the talking — that what's done. 
Old-timer, I'm the porcupine that you 
Was worryin' nature over, and a few 
Of them remarks about him fits. 

Duke (refiectingly) : ^j,^^^ ^j^ 

Sheeiet : 

These gents have congregated, you'll surmise, 

Prepared to swing a minin' enterprise. 

The syndicate is pleased to have you jine 

And work your share — five shares there'll be — and 

sign 
Up with us. But subscription's goin' to close 
Right smart, immediate, and yonder goes 
A trail for them whose natures don't dispose. 
You're sociable? You're in? 

GOLDENEOD (slyly) : ^^^^^ .^ ^^^ j^^^. 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 23 

Pinto (excitedly) : 

That's what we want to know. I've rode 
All over 

Sheriff: Pinto, close your face!! I'll do 

This business. Oh, we know the mine where you 
Get them young gold-bricks. All you need to say 
Is: "I'm agreeable." Or, the other way, 
You get till moonrise to pull stakes. We've got 
The mine located. 

GOLDENKOD: -nr -^ r. ^ 

Was it you, one hot 
Day, when I was down panning in the creek. 
Started a gravel slip and took a sneak 
Off through the aspens? 

Shebiff: g^^g, ^j^g jj^j^g ^^^ ^gjj_ 

Now, can't you, Duke? — how near it was you fell 
Over the gravel bluff. 

Duke: 

Convinced I can. 
Pinto: 

Why, Duke, I 

Sheriff (silencing Pinto abruptly) : 
Sure he did. 

Goi-DENEOD (realistically): ^^^ ^^.^ ^^^^^ 

Once while I worked the placer, and I heard 
A pony snort, and on the ridge a bird 
Squawked an alarm. You, too? 



24 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

S^^^'^^^- A whisky jack? 

I reckon Pinto scared it, hurryin' back 
That cloudburst time. I reckon you'll agree 
We seen your cards? 

Goldeneod: tt7 i, .. 4. u 

Well, so it seems to be. 

There are no diggings, then, as you must know — 

No golden Eden tree where nuggets grow. 

I have no treasure-pile. I scour the hills 

Winter and summer, and a year scarce fills 

My pouch with color. And when autumn's red, 

Because my bag is heavy, you're misled 

By that one sight of me — that one display 

For which I've spent a toiling year — and say 

You must waylay me when I come away. 

I have no buried talents — only hope. 

Forget me! 

Otero (indicating a tree branch): 

Ah, Senor! The rope! 
Duke (disgusted) : . 

Will find no diggings. 

Where there ain't! Correct! 
Sheriff, I alius said, you'll recollect. 
The pot is nothing when the ante's high. 

Duke (crossing to the Sheriff) : 

Corral that pouch of his. If that is dry. 
His yarn is plausible. He dreams too well 
Ta have much gold about him. 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 25 

Sheriff: ^^ , „ 

Stranger, shell 

Us out those nuggets that you brought to town! 
Goldenbod: 

One's in the pouch there, where I laid it down 
Upon the bookshelf, where the volumes preach 
The folly of it. But the volumes each 
Took gold to buy them. Shall I go? 

Shebiff : ,-,,,. 

Hold up! 

Go get it, Pinto! 

(Pinto goes into the caMn and returns to the 

doorstep with the hag in his hand.) 

GOLDENROD : 

All the other rust 
I had I spent among you. Some small dust, 
And one more pebble — yellow like a star, 
But cold, and staring as stars never are. 

Sheriff: 
Well, Pinto! 

Pinto: 

As he said, one piece of luck 

Worth fifty dollars. God, I never struck 

A lead that petered out like this! I'm through — 

Except maybe a little boot or two 

To pay this blamed deceiving old galoot 

What's comin' to him! 

(Otero draws his pistol menacingly at Goldenrod.) 



26 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

Pinto, that white brute 
Of yours is half-way back to town by now, 

Shebiff: 

And teachin' all the other ponies how 
To strip their bridles. 

Sonny: 

No, I hobbled him, 

And tied the balance. Dad, along a limb. 

Duke: 

Sonny, you're even with your dad. He strung 
Us all out on a limb — himself among 
The rest. I'm through. 

Pinto : 

I'm through, except to do 

One little dooty. 

(He is about to belt Goldenrod, when Otero whis- 
pers in his ear. He stops. To Otero) : 
Would it run this way? 
I reckon so, Otero. Anyway, 
Let's trampas, Duke? 

Sheriff (thoughtfully) : 

You re through? Your sat- 
isfied? 
Duke: 

Not satisfied, but through! Clear through! Beside, 
We're keeping Goldenrod awake, my friend! 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 27 

(The Duke, Otero and Pinto scramble up the hill 
behind the cabin into the woods. The Sheriff 
follows them out, deliberately, studying 
Goldenrod. The boy disappears. The Duke 
starts a song. Otero and Pinto join in, their 
voices dying as they get farther away.) 
I've got a pony, and his name is Luck! 

Whoa, pony, whoa! 
His gaits are tony, but he's wild to buck — 

Whoa, pony, whoa! 
There's some can ride him like a rockin'-horse. 
I'm pullin' leather, but I'm off, o' course! 
It don't take nothin' much to divorce 
Me and my Luck! 

GoLDENEOD (left to Mmsclf) : 

Gods of the hills! Sometimes a man must pray — 
Christian or infidel — when flames, that play 
Close to his heart-wood, sink and turn away. 
Sometimes! — when earthquakes test the masonry 
Of his life's mission, and he shouts to see 
The corner stones and turrets firm and tried. 
Gods! I have heard your hushed departing stride 
Upon the hills! I know not what you are. 
But I have heard you breathing, and afar 
The stern, white peaks stand up in majesty 
Uncommon to my hereabouts and me! 
Gods of the woods! Whatever gods there be 
Themselves have saved the charge they gave to me. 

(Recovering himself) 
Feel how the woods like water seem to close 



28 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

Around this sin-whipped vortex, and Repose 
Floats in again — as still Ophelia went. 
Drifting along that brook where willows bent. 

Sonny (from the wooded hanJc at the left) : 
Old Mr. Goldenrod? 

Goi^jiENHOD (startled): ^^^^^.^ ^^^^, 
(After a pause, breathlessly) : 
Who 



Who's there? 



SoNNx (entering from the left): 
Mr. Goldenrod? 

Goldenrod: {aside) Someone to tear 

My wounds part healing, half -allayed! 

(Answering) : 
They call me Goldenrod, my boy! 

Sonny: rrn, ^^ 

They call 

You that because you come to town at fall, 

Like goldenrod along the rocky flat, 

With nuggets, and you've blossoms in your hat. 

I did not know it hurt to call you so. 

I'm sorry. 

Goldenkod: q^^ .^.^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^j ^^^ ^^ 

Away with all the others, but return? 

Sonny: 
I did not want my Dad and Duke to learn 
I talked to you. 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 29 



GOLDENROD : 

You are the Sheriff's son? 
Sonny: 

Yes, so he calls me. But the Duke, and one 
Or two, say maybe not. 

GOLDENROD : 

It's late at night. 
The timber's full of noises. Shadows fight 
And frighten up the birds among the pine. 
Better ride home! 

Sonny: 

I know about your mine. 

And I rode back so I could ask you why 

You're different from the folks in town, and try 

To hide it, like a blackbird hides a nest, 

Limpin' away and frightened-like. The rest 

All make a holler when they've made a strike. 

And buy the drinks at Dad's. You acted like 

I used to, playin' pirate, hidin' stuff 

Nobody wanted. 

GOLDENROD : 

Son, we're like enough! 
There is no mine — no gold worth robbing me! 
What gold I glean 

Sonny (starting away): 

I thought maybe 

You wouldn't rag to me when Dad's away. 

Maybe the Duke can answer why you play 

Pirate and train the beaver-folks to build 

Over the pay-lode. 



30 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

Goldeneod: ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ j^^^, ^^^^ ^^^^^ 

Your mind with such a story? Boy, come back! 
The beaver builds for no man, as you know! 
No one could 

Goldenrod, I saw you throw 
The nuggets by the beaver-house, and heard 
The things you told the beavers — every word! 
The boys were yonder in the scrub, but I'd 
Hid nearer here. The beavers, they replied; 
But what they said I could not tell, becuz' 
The beavers talk just like the water does. 
Stranger, don't rag to me! 

Goldeneod: -nr •+ -^i rt.> * « 

Wait, wait! It s true 

There were some yellow pebbles that I threw 

Into the pool. We'll dredge them up, and you 

Shall have them, if you never tell that crew 

That plagues me. 

'^^^^^ Oh, there's more gold there beside! 

The beavers keep the rest. And you have tried 
To mend the beaver-dam, below there — stopped 
A break with logs that beavers never chopped. 

Goldeneod: 

Boy, boy! You do not know where you have trod! 
Sonny: 

Know where I go? Oh, Mr. Goldenrod, 

I do not want the nuggets. Dad would take 

Them all away. 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 31 

GoLDENEOD (to Mmself, Ms hand uncertainly on the 
l)oy's shoulder): 

How gently I could break 
This fragile frame! How tenderly the rain 
And seasons would erase it, and again 
Knit up their silences around my trust! 

Sonny: 
You frighten me! 

GoLDENBOD (dreamily): 

My groves, my comrades, must 
This pilgrimage you set for me demand 
Destruction, too? 

Sonny: 

Oh, just to understand — 

That's all I asked! 

GOLDENROD : 

To understand! To seal 
What I have sealed! To know and not reveal, 
Speechless as trees when I beseech their speech! 
Lonely as hours that travel space! To reach 
Such understanding, one must gather years 
About him, numbered like the bitter spears 
On these dark spruces. 

Sonny: 

Most of what I know 

Are secrets — caves and nests and things that grow 

Hidden. And if I only understood, 

I'd likely want to help you. 



32 THE GOLDENEOD LODE 



Goldenkod: 

What? You could? 

Sonny : 

I'd lie all day and learn beside the pool — 
Learn beaver-talk. And I could steal from school 
Old heavy books, like those you come to buy. 

Goldenrod: 

And I could teach you where the eagles fly 
To feed their nestlings on the canon wall, 
And then, when my old fingers let it fall, 
You'd carry on the torch. 

Sonny: 

The torch? 

Goldenrod: 

I mean 

Relieve the sentinel. Was this foreseen? 

Have hill-gods brought you, like the sheets of green 

Across the prairie only cloudbursts bring? 

No matter, little dreamer! Everything 

Is ventured now. Perhaps! Perhaps! 

Sonny: 

I still 

Don't understand about the torch. 

Goldenrod : 

You will! 

And if the hill-gods sent you, you will learn 

To garrison my fortress in your turn; 

And if the hill-gods sent you not, the gods 

That counsel me will set, in Goldenrod's 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 33 

Extremity, some sign upon the peaks 
To guide him. 

Sonny: 

Gods? The kind of thing that speaks 

Sometimes inside the canon when you call? 

I know a place where they will answer — all 

Of them. 

Goldenrod: 

That god is Echo, He's the sprite 

Who tries to lead the children to the sight 

Of greater spirits. Few of those who hear 

Him follow. 

Sonny: 

I have tried. Before I'm near 

He's gone, and I am tired. 

Goldenkod : 

Well, never mind! 

If I can teach and hold you, you will find 

Hushed voices everywhere. Do you suppose, 

If I should tell you secrets no one knows 

But beaver-men and me — none anywhere — 

You'd lock it up forever, till your hair 

Was white as aspen bark? 

Sonny : 

I can! I will! 

GOLDENBOD : 

Then listen! Once I straggled down this hill — 
In April, when those first blue blossoms still 
Were opening their eyes behind their fur, 



34 THE GOLDENEOD LODE 

Like kittens, scuddling, where the snow-banks were, 

Against a huge, white mother. Long ago — 

Before the town began that ugly row 

Of false-front cabins on the plains below; 

Before that naaple shrub was high enough 

To hide the warbler's nest; before the rough. 

Wide ox-trails to the river towns were made — 

I came to prospect, early, young, afraid 

Some other courtier of Mistress Luck 

Would strike his hammer where I might have struck. 

Some trace of usage, or a v/ind that blew 

From other worlds, enticed and led me through 

The hidden trail you found along the ledge 

Tonight. 

Sonny : 

It's like a stairway down the edge 

Of cliffs. 

GOLDENROD : 

One stair to this green gallery 
Led out into the caiion hall. 

Sonny: 

Were we 

The first to find it since that day? Were you 

The first? 

GOLDENEOD : 

Oh, no, nor those who last passed thru 
Before me, first! For here, where two 
Shy waterways crept from the wood and grew 
Bolder together, was spread out a book 
Where men had written since the first man took 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 35 

The drug of yellow metal — here to read 

Pages of slaughter, elegies of greed! 

I stopped upon the hillock. Littered here 

Were heaps of chips and pebbles, where, by sheer 

Force of their finger-nails, crude, toolless men 

Had gnawed the mountain; there a pit, and then 

Fire-smudge and camp-stains everywhere; that hill 

A kind of fortress, hedged with stones, and still 

Half-garrisoned with Indian bones. 

Sonny: 

They all 

Had gone? 

GOLDENKOD : 

Had gone. But how unwillingly 
They went. Red man and Spaniard, trapper, and, last, 
One wanderer like myself, who saw and cast 
His hammer in the pit; and, as he leaped 
To follow it, some hidden bowmen heaped 
Him, tumbled in his buckskin rags, asleep 
In Eldorado. 

Sonny: 

Eldorado? There? 

Goldenrod: 

Who knows if Eldorado's anywhere. 

Or, like the rainbow and most flawless things, 

Just built from longing men's imaginings? 

This much 1 know, that, streaked within the pit 

Where men had pried and gouged and hammered it 

For ages, there was gold! Oh, gold enough 

To topple empires — seams of blood-stained stuff 



36 THE GOLDENEOD LODE 

That cheapened Ophir and would leave mankind. 
In mosque and wigwam, fur or clout, to find 
New terms of barter and new wealth to hoard! 
A mother-lode, whose merest sweepings poured 
Across the canon brim like stars that fell 
To feed the placers. 

^^^' You were rich and well 

And young. And every trail and dim divide 
Is beckoning and promising. Why hide 
It all, old' Goldenrod? 

Go^^^^^o^- I sat till dusk 

Beside the earth-wounds, and the musk 
Of spruce and orchid mingled. Fading light 
Bound up earth's scars, and in the cave of night 
The sighing evening laid the wreck away, 
"Wait," night and talking waters seemed to say. 
I waited, faltering till the night forbade 
My grasping what I reached. And I was glad — 
For I had trod my summit; but the place 
I trod was stained. Then, somehow, in from space 
The message and my mission entered me: 
This splash of gold and slaughter meant to teach 
That gold was for pursuit and not to reach; 
That life was spun of longings, but the gain 
Of life was to endeavor, not obtain; 
That I could serve and shelter all mankind 
By mere withholding what they strove to find! 

Sonny : 

I understand a part. You are a knight — 



THE GOLDENEOD LODE 37 

Like those in story-books who rode to fight 
Dragons that came with flaming mouths, and burned 
The little towns. 

Goldeneod: ,„, , 

The dragon's gold! 

Sonny: „ , . , 

You ve turned 

Away, like those old knights, from home and court 

And wealth. 

GOLDENBOD : 

And found, my boy, another sort 
Of court and wealth, as did the knights of old! 
A court where statelier tapestries unfold; 
Where incense never satiates; and none 
Are rich as he who numbers battles won. 

Sonny: 

I think I understand. But can you kill 
The dragon you have buried? Won't he still 
Come flaming out to burn the helpless folks, 
When you are old or gone? 

Goldeneod: „ ^. 

Sometimes he smokes. 

It's so tonight. And then I've wondered who 

The hill-gods would provide, or what they'd do 

To keep him smothered, when I didn't wake 

Some morning. 

Soon the summer rain would take 
Away the dam you helped the beaver make. 



38 THE GOLDENEOD LODE 

GOLDENEOD : 

Some straggler'll find a flake of gold, and so 
Let loose the dragon. 

Sonny : 

Goldenrod, I know! 

I'll watch the dragon! Keep him buried deep 

In ferns and water-lilies while you sleep! 

And if he smokes, there'll just seem water mist. 

Goldenrod : 

But, boy, this game, this watch, must stand until- 
Until — until 

Sonny: 

"Until IS far away. 

But there are knights, the fairy-stories say, 

Who're watching still — until 

GOLDENEOD : 

Until the years 
Can post another knight, or through its tears 
The world discerns that what seems yellow gold 
Is crimson. 

Sonny: 

And a dragon's blood. 

Goldenrod: „ 

Behold! 

The godful hills entrust the charge to you. 

They speak mysteriously, but speak they do. 

Come, soldier mine, I'll knot your armor on! 

Your mantle's woodland silence, and your blade 

Of goldenrod. 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 39 

(He goes dotvn to the margin of the pond, lohen 
the Sheriff's voice speaks abruptly from the 
gloom upon the trees at the right.) 

Sheriff: Wq'W likelier need a spade, 

(The hoy, already following Goldenrod, hears him 
and stops. Goldenrod. unmindful of the inter- 
ruption, dips his hand under the water and 
brings up a handful of pebbles, sprinkled with 
golden fragments.) 

Goldenrod (continuing) : 

Here, see the dragon-scales that shed, and so 
Betray the monster, restless down below 
On such a day as this! The woods are much 
Too foul with human thoughts. His talons clutch 
At hope, his nostrils scent the greed of men 
Through all the forest garlands. But again 

He's stupored now, and 

(The Sheriff has come doiim to the center. He 
shoves the boy roughly toivard the trail. When 
he speaks Goldenrod notices him for the first 
time.) 

Sheriff (to the boy) : ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^, 

From now I'll play this hand alone. Go comb 
Them dragon-flies and what-not from your brain! 
The game is cut-throat now. I'll learn you plain 
To work your dad with monte. 

(To Goldenrod) : ^g ^ gj, ^^^^ 

Old badger, buryin' bones in holes won't fill 
The bill. The lode is mine. 



40 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

G-oldenrod: ^j^^ ^^^.^ j^ ^^jj^ 

My own. You do not know its whereabouts. 

Sheeiff : 
I reckon, yes. 

Goldenrod: ^^jj^ ^j^^j.^. 

Sheriff : There's some as spouts 

Their names, their own real names, across the bar 
'Most every time they're liquored up. You are, 
Sez I to me — you are a different brand. 
No show to see your cards; but I presume, 
Sez I, he's got to talk; there isn't room 
To hold that much inside a locoed cuss. 
You thought you'd tenderfooted all of us. 
I went along a ways, and doubled back. 
I come still-huntin', and I heard a sack 
O' moonshine, but I know that there's the lode. 

Sonny: 
The other boys — where's Duke? 

Sheriff : rpj^^y ^jj jj^^g ^.^^g 

Half-way to town by now. That's their lookout. 
The claim is mine. Hit out, I said! About 
A minute and I learn you how. 

Sonny: j,jj g^! 

I'm goin'. Dad! I honest didn't know 

(The hoy plods slowly up the hill to the right, 
getting scarcely out of sight.) 



THE GOLDENEOD LODE 41 

Goldenkod: 

The lode's my own! I'm holding it, and by 
The district rules 

Sheriff: rj,^^ district, hell! Just try 

To hold it after this. 

(He strides to the cabin, tears a sheet from the 
took that Goldenrod dropped in the struggle, 
tacks it onto a tree trunk at the left, and writes 
with a piece of charcoal.) 

No claim, I guess. 
Is good in these parts anywhere unless 
You work the diggin's or you post a sign — 
Location notice. Where's your own? Here's mine! 

(Reading) : 
"Notice: I claim four hundred feet due east, 
Four hundred west on this" — I might at least 
Call this claim Goldenrod — "as wide to north 
And south, as District rules provide, this fourth 
Of August, by discovery, made this day. 
Jack Fadden." 

(The boy limps back from the right onto the 
stage, absorbed and gazing eagerly off the stage 
to the right, where a glow is visible in the sky.) 

Shebiff (to the boy) : 

Youngster, did you hear me say 
Back-trail for town? 

I started, Dad, but there's 
A fire along the trail, I think. It flares 
Above the treetops. 



42 THE GOLDENEOD LODE 



Shebiff : 

Where? A fire? 

Sonny: 

It s near, 

Goldeneod: 
A fire? 

Sonny: , , 

It seems along the ledge. Hark, hear 

The crackling now! 

Goldeneod: 

No forest fire can heap 

The ashes of this day of mine too deep. 

Sheriff : 
I reckon Pinto 



Sonny : 

Yes, Otero rode 

Away with him and said, if just it blowed 

Northeast awhile, they'd singe old Goldenrod 

For breaking up their sleep. And Pinto'd nod 

Sheriff: 

The ledge, the trail! If once the cinders take 
The cedars where they're thickest, they will make 
The ledge a fryin'-pan. I'll make a break 
For it. 

GoLDENKOD (wJio is goziug up the stream from the 
right front): 

The trail is closed! A fir I know — 
A slim aristocrat that used to grow 
Among the shabby cedars on the ledge — 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 43 

Just toppled in the canon from the edge, 
A flaming falling angel! 

Shebiff: 

Angel, hell! 

You, both of you, would like almighty well 

To leave me sizzlin' here while you slipped down 

Some gulch you've marked, and pronto into town. 

To make a record of this claim of mine 

Before my own. I reckon not! 

Sonny (as the Sheriff rushes angrily off to the left) : 

Dad, Dad! 
There is no other trail! 

GOLDENEOD : 

The dragon's had 
Its teeth in him, my boy! The flame's as red 
Within him as the flames that blaze ahead. 
He'll run the gauntlet safe. 

Sonny: 

But you and I 

Goldenkod: 

Men who are maddened pass where we should die! 

Sonny: 
But, Goldenrod, I am afraid! 

Goldenkod : 

Afraid? 

Sonny: 
Yes, for I know as well as you we've stayed 
Too long. The pine sap's dripping. Let us go! 



44 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

Goldenrod: 
Where? 

Sonny: 

Surely there's a rock or cave you know 

Where we could climb! 
Goldeneod: 



What made 



I know of none. 
Sonny: 

That crash? 

Goldeneod: 

A deer. 

Sonny: 

I'm frightened. 

Goldeneod (coming over to comfort Mm) : 

You're afraid? 
There, boy! The woods are not afraid. The hills 
Are never sick nor well. And nothing fills 
The stars with fear or gladness. Only we, 
Not tall enough to see tomorrow, flee 
And sob today. 

Sonny: 

I do not want to burn! 

Goldeneod : 

Nor I, because I'm human, and I learn 
Too dully from my master, and resent 
The hand that tears the copy-book I meant 
So well, but blotted heedlessly. 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 45 

Sonny : 

The creek! 

The pool! 

(He rushes to the water's edge, tugging at Golden- 
rod's hand. Suddenly a voice in the background. 
The smoke is dense, and the glow of the fire 
nearby. The Sheriff stumbles in from the rear, 
feeling his way among the tree-trunks, his 
clothing smoldering, his face scorched and 
sightless, Jiis lungs choked with smoke.) 

Hello, hello! I heard somebody speak. 
Where's water — water! Help! Where's Goldenrod? 
I'll give you half the mine! I will, by God! 
I hear you talking! Where's the fire? Which way? 
Don't lead me back to it! I will, I say — 
I'll give you all the mine. Hello! I'll find 

That cabin, and 

(He falls heavily in the center, reaching ahead of 
himself.) 

Sonny (underneath his breath) : 

It's Dad! It's Dad! 

Goldenrod (the same) : 

He's blind. 

(The boy starts to his aid.) 

Stop! For perhaps the forces that maintain 

The mountains gather up their strength again. 

Of all men, only that scorched moth has learned 

The trust we kept, and now his wings are burned — 

Who knows how purposely? Some fluttering, 



46 THE GOLDENKOD LODE 

Some moments, and the hurrying moments bring 
Cool silences to quench his suffering; 
Cool silences that he must drink, and so 
Forget forever! 

Sonny: 

Do you mean, not go 

To help him? Surely 

Goldeneod: 

What is sure? Should one 

Brief human torture halt the wheels that run, 

Relentless, over beast and bird and bough 

To serve mankind? 

Sonny: 

But he is suffering now! 

Tomorrow we will make him swear to keep 

The dragon buried. 

Goldeneod (after a moment) : 

There's tide too deep 
And strong toward fellow-men for argument 
To dam. My reason gives. My heart relents. 

(He fetches water in Ms hat for the Sheriff, and 
the hoy lifts the Sheriff's head. Before the 
water reaches him, the Sheriff raises himself 
on his elbow.) 

Sheriff : 

Hello, you Goldenrod! Don't let me go 
Back in the fire! The mine is 



THE GOLDENROD LODE 47 

(He collapses. The man and ioy, conscious that 
his struggle is over, halt where they stand; the 
hoy, with his head on his knees, heside the 
Sheriff's tody; Ooldenrod not so near.) 

GrOLDENEOD (gently letting the water drain from his 
hat) : 

The hill-gods take the page they choose to write 
From our uncertain, meddling hands. Tonight 
A parchment's crowded with their scrip, and one 
Bold stroke blots out disaster. They have won 
Me back again my citadel, my trust 
Unpillaged 

Sonny: 

But the forest fire! We must 

Be quick! 

GOLDENKOD : 

I had forgotten it! Reprieve 
Was all! Can they be jeering? 

Sonny: 

I believe 

There must be some trail down the cliff. 

GOLDENKOD : 

I know 
There's none. I've watched the mountain-sheep 
Climb uselessly. 

Sonny: 

The beaver-pool would keep 

Us till the fire rides past! 



48 THE GOLDENROD LODE 

GOLDENROD : 

Go, boy, and he 
Beside the ouzel-nests in spray! Not I! 
I could not flinch and watch one comrade trunk 
Of these decay in flame; or, when flames sunk, 
Crawl back to any happiness beside 
The stumps that told their martyrdom! 

Sonny (urging Mm toward the water) : 

So wide 

And hot a fire will leave no forest here. 

The beaver-folks will go. They must be near 

To aspen groves. We'll build another new 

Home somewhere else; for then (hesitating) 

Goldenkod: ^r ^x.- i. ,j 

Nothing can hold 

The dragon quiet? Then let the beast unfold 

His wings! Dragon and all mankind's distress, 

My own oblivion and yours, seem less 

To me than that the pagan fire should claim 

These patient woods, a sacrifice to flame! 

Gods of the hills, tonight I knelt and gave 

Thanks that you chose to shelter me and save 

Tempestuous men! Again stretch out your hands 

For me, if you have hands! The forest stands, 

Older than men, humble and vast and sweet 

Past any man! No longings stir its feet 

With discontent. It asks no strength to meet 

Its own defaults, but fire is on the way! 

Gods of the Mountain-Tops, I pray, I pray! 

(Goldenrod drops to Ms knees. The smoke is 

dense, and the glare of fire has spread from the 



THE GOLDENKOD LODE 49 

right to all sides of the stage. The boy stands 
in front of him, staring at the water, paralyzed 
by the man's intensity. Suddenly his hand in- 
voluntarily closes over his mouth, a^ if he did 
not trust himself to speak, his gaze still on the 
water. He has seen raindrops on the smooth 
pool surface. He glances to the sky, back to 
the water, his hand extended in the reaction of 
a desire to call Goldenrod's attention. Finally 
the whisper escapes his lips.) 

Sonny: 
Rain! 

(Goldenrod lifts his head and stretches his arms 
to catch the drops, rising as he does so.) 

Goldenrod (gently, and finally): 
The rain! 

(The lights on the stage are quickly dimmed, and 
then entirely eclipsed in a torrent of the rain. 
The audience is conscious of rain on the beaver- 
pool and little flood torrents down the two 
streams. The forest fire sinks and is no more 
apparent. The figures are gone.) 

On the dark stage the lighted oil-paper win- 
dow of the cabin becomes visible in the storm. 
There are no other lights. The rain slackens, 
the floods subside, and among the dripping 
leaves th-e fireflies appear again. 



50 THE GOLDENEOD LODE 

An Elder Speuce: 

Rain of the night, raindrops in flight, 
Dripping and slipping, erasing away 
Stains from a crowded world, each in a drop im- 
pearled — 
Dripping and traveling, what do you say? 

A Younger Spruce: 
Answer the spruce! For we ponder eternally. 

Fireflies and woodbine and gray wolves and men 
Hunger and yearn and fly, here where our needles lie, 

Soiling the woods till you cleanse them again. 
Raindrops, a-pattering, spattering, thronging. 
What's at the end of the trail of your longing? 

Elder Spruce: 

Striplings! Since first summer showers burst 

Over the uplands from ocean-made mist, 
Raindrops are dumb, unless something in their 
caress 
Comforts and answers the boughs they have 
kissed! 

The End. 



